





THE JUBILEE OF THE 
YOUNG WOMENS CHRISTIAN 
ASSOCIATION 


1866.1916 


NATIONAL BoarD 
OF THE YOUNG WOMENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS 
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
600 LEXINGTON AVENUE 
NEW YORK CITY 
1917 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2021 with funding from 
Columbia University Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/jubileeofyoungwo00unse 


THE JUBILEE OF THE 
YOUNG WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN 
ASSOCIATION 


1866-1916 


€|UT on the Pacific Coast in the Spring days of 1915 there 
y] came to some of the delegates at the National Convention 





a desire for some great “family party” of the Young 
4); Women’s Christian Association members in the United 
States. It was spoken of as a simultaneous event when members 
in student and city and country Associations should learn about 
each others work, and the same sort of things which our fellow 
members in the World’s Young Women’s Christian Association 
family were doing, a time of information with a chance to make 
a free will offering to bring still better things to pass. 


The Convention ceased, and the delegates left Los Angeles. Many 
journeyed northward to Asilomar near Monterey where the employed 
officers were to meet for several days on the newly acquired Conference 
site, to walk by day beneath the tall pine trees, and to sleep by night 
beneath roofs made of other odorous cedars, roofs which had hardly 
ceased to resound to the blow of the hammer. 


Here it was recalled that in the spring of 1866 the first Young 
Women’s Christian Association in the United States came into existence 
and that 1916 would be the jubilee anniversary of the movement. 
Like flint and steel the ‘every member” idea and the “fiftieth anni- 
versary” idea came together and there flamed up the thought of 


THE EVERY MEMBER’S JUBILEE 
3 


One member of the National Board contributed a text: 


“Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty 
throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,’ and 
another took up again her favorite “Pilgrims Progress” and 
furnished a motto: 


“Here one may be thinking what he is, whence he came, 
what he has done, and to what the King has called him.” 


February first to March third were fixed as the dates of the 
celebration and nearly a thousand Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
ciations set to work to observe it in the way that meant most to them, 
because the significance of the occasion was visible to all. 


Fifty Years of Association Work among Young Women 
in the United States of America. 


This Is What the Jubilee Celebrated 


THE PIONEER DAYS 


A Sunday and a weekday were devoted to the pioneers of the local 
Associations. ‘Our Heritage’ was the most frequent theme of the 
Vesper Service, and “Reminiscences” of the social gathering. Some 
of the speakers were listed as “‘the first president,’ “the president 
Emeritus,” “all the presidents,” “daughter of the founder,” “pioneer 
members,” “charter members,” etc. Most of the Associations compiled 
their own history for the occasion and one initial sentence was sure 
to be “a small group of women gathered for prayer.” Ladies told of 
the first meeting over which they had presided, the first sewing class 
they had taught, the first articles of furnishing they had solicited. 
Some of these Associations measured nearly a half century of history 
and few of their founders could be present. Flowers or a pencilled 


4 


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message were their only possible greeting. Other pioneers were pres- 
ent in person and spoke, or led in prayer. Sometimes costumes dating 
“before the war’ were brought out and worn with great effect and 
their wearers sang “Long, Long Ago,” “Ben Bolt,” or “Auld Lang 
Syne.” 

None of the audiences who heard the seventy-six pioneer programs 
dared to think of these women, or their work as “antiquated.” They 
realized that more than two score years ago the pioneers had seen a 
vision to which they had not been disobedient and that they had made 
innovations, attempted measures unheard of in their day, which meas- 
ures following generations have accepted as common-place and which 
innovations the twentieth century claims as its rights. The women of 
1866 to 1886 bridged chasms just as wide and deep as those that 
appall us today, but a greater faith was required of them than would 
be required for the same undertaking today when countless experiences 
have proved woman’s capacity in cooperation and administration. 


Courageous Beginnings 
This Is What the Pioneer Days Commemorated 


THE PAGEANT 


Study of the early days showed how city after city presented 
such new industrial and religious situations to its young women that 
no existing means could meet them and a new type of movement was 
required. To picture these conditions to the Association members 
and friends of 1916 seemed the province of an Historical Pageant, 
such as had taken its part in the great Jubilee of the Woman’s Mis- 
sionary Societies in 1911, and in the anniversaries of colleges and 
towns and counties; such as had thrilled our own Biennial Convention 
at Richmond in 1913 when the Ministering of the Gift was first por- 


5 


trayed to be taken up by Associations in every part of the country. 
But this Jubilee Pageant was simpler than many of its predecessors, in 
order to make it usable in the large and small Associations. It was 
called “Girls of Yesterday and Today—Historical Pictures of As- 
sociation Life” and was presented less or more elaborately by sixty- 
nine cities and twenty-six student Associations where 72,198 people 
saw the story grow before their eyes. | 


There were only two speakers, a girl of 1866 and a girl of 1916, 
and before them passed in review girls looking for a place to live, girls 
taking home parcels from tailoring and dressmaking establishments, 
office employees and school teachers, a governess with a child clinging 
to her, factory and mill workers. Linking this prologue to the first 
pantomimie scene was the Jubilee Hymn, the music of which ran 
through the Pageant and, in fact, through the whole Jubilee: 


“God is working his purpose out as year succeeds 
to year: 


God is working his purpose out and the time is 
drawing near— 


Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that 
shall surely be, 


When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God, 


as the waters cover the sea.” 


There followed a scene in a private house in any New England 
city, where a group of women, inspired by work already begun in 
England and in Boston, came together and organized a Young Women’s 
Christian Association. Their courage would have failed had not two | 
girls, strangers to the city, come for help even while they were facing 
their difficulties. 


Then to the music of each decade cume in the Procession of the 
Years, the girls among whom the Associations was finding its way, 


6 


1866-1876 city people, 1876-1886 country girls also, 1886-1896 col- 
lege students who met in the first summer conferences, and -Hindu 
women, to indicate the extension of American Association work into 
India, 1896-1906 industrial members who came in large numbers, and 
1906-1916 “‘New Americans” from many foreign lands. and a group 
representing the younger members. 


“What can we do to work God’s work. to prosper and increase 
The brotherhood of all mankind. the reign of the Prince of Peace?” 


This was answered in the Present Day scene when girls older 
and younger, native and foreign born, from city, country and college 
revealed some of the varied activities of the modern Associations— 
Bible study, eight week clubs, outings, cooking classes, gymnasium 
drill, life in an Association residence, centering in the welcome of a 
large group of young women from lands where there is World Fellow- 
ship through the World’s Young Women’s Christian Association. Fel- 
lowship began even in the preparation of the Pageant for every partici- 
pant in it was a local member, who learned more of what her Asso- 
ciation was meant to do as she rummaged attics for old fashioned 
gowns and furniture or visualized the existence of the other pageant 
groups, perhaps not known in her own home community, but evidently 
a part of the “real Young Women’s Christian Association.” Recogni- 
tion of what people in previous decades had done was brought home 
to all who saw the Pageant, and those who sang the Jubilee hymn 
realized that there was still Another cooperating with the Girls of 
Yesterday and Today, for 

“All we can do is nothing worth unless God blesses 
the deed 


Vainly we hope for the harvest, till God gives life 
to the seed.” 


New Undertakings to Meet New Responsibilities 
This Is What the Pageant Signified. 
7 


THE MEMBERS RALLIES AND BANQUETS 


Although Tuesday, February first, had been recommended as an 
occasion for a “Membership Rally” under the direction of the “Mem- 
bership Committee,” 228 cities and 54 student Associations made it 
the opportunity for a great Love Feast of the membership and as 
many friends as could find places in the banquet rooms. What the 
county Associations lacked in numbers they made up in vigor and 
fire, and fire of some sort was surely needed that month, since one 
North Dakota gathering assembled when the outside temperature 
registered fifty-four degrees below zero! 


Everybody wanted to come. Conservative Associations had to 
“move out’’ from their plans of a dinner in the Association dining 
room and engage banquet halls in hotels which were taxed in all their 
resources to serve the guests. Other Associations stopped selling 
tickets several days beforehand. Gold and blue decorations blazed 
above the tables, artistic and symbolic candle shades graced the board, 
both simple and ornate gowns were in evidence, and the music of 
occasional orchestras was drowned in the singing, 


“How do you do Mrs....... How do you do! 
Is there anything that we can do for you? 
We'll help you all we can, 
We'll stand by you like a man; 
How do you do Mrs....... How do you do!” 


Ex-president Roosevelt in New York City, Ex-president Taft in 
New Haven, hundreds of other less known speakers, visiting members 
of the National Board, and field committees who toured the country, 
local dignitaries such as the president of the Association and the head 
cook of the Association cafeteria, all were sung to and cheered. 


Some people never knew they could sing and some never knew 
they wanted to sing until they were swept along by these joyful out- 


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bursts, and found they were singing. And more than one substantial 
business man who had often expressed his wonder that his wife should 
“spend so much time down at that Y. W. C. A.” understood it, as he 
saw her sitting at the head of a family of 2,000 on the gala night, or 
rising with flushed cheeks to deprecate an acclaim of bad poetry and 
good melody, in 


Mg at as Ohi we love you, 
Mires ciekcs » so dear. 


If you think we don’t love you, 
What a foolish idea.” 


Some of the pleasantest functions were enjoyed by groups which 
had not met before in similar ways; employers and their wives, foremen 
and forewomen and factory nurses attended the industrial club ban- 
quets, a maids’ club entertained the board of directors. 


Such gatherings could be brought together only by some unifying 
purpose. It did not need the singing of 


“Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love” to make this plain, for 
every member realized this acceptable democracy. 


All are One in Christ Jesus. 
This Is What the Members’ Rallies Emphasized. 


THE GIRLS’ CELEBRATIONS 


While the reason for having any Jubilee was, of course, the work 
of the Pioneers which came instinctively to the front whenever Jubilee 
was mentioned, yet most of the Associations realized in these anni- 
versary days that its girl members are, after all, their greatest cause 
for rejoicing. 


> 


“Our Pioneers are most of them Freshmen in College,’ wrote the 
secretary of a new county Association. But some thousands of girls 
were still at home as was seen by the girls’ celebrations of the Jubilee 
month. Their special vesper service announcements often sounded so 
attractive that a line had to be added, “Main floor reserved for girls 


under eighteen.” 


These mass meetings and “spreads” were not “for children by 
their elders,’ but they were arranged and carried out by teen age 
girls. A sixteen year old leader presided over the largest vesper 
service one city had ever known. Eight of the younger girls told the 
church people one Sunday how the Young Womens Christian Associa- 
tion co-operated and supplemented what church and Sunday school 
were doing, young violinists and pianists and readers and singers 
offered programs which delighted the guests of honor who felt that 
they could begin to lay down some of the heavy burdens long carried, 
since there was a host coming who were learning to carry their own 


burdens. 


The Young Womens Christian Association Belongs to the Girls 
This Is What the Girls Celebrations Declared 


THE VESPER SERVICES 


Whole hearted re-commitment to the fundamental religious pur- 
pose of the Young Women’s Christian Association was the accepted 
function of the Jubilee. Months in advance the working forces began 
to study “The Meaning of Prayer’ and kindred manuals of devotion, 
and to call attention to the “untouched resources in Jesus Christ,” 
which made possible a great advance for the future years. 


Because the late Sunday afternoon hours have been reserved for. 
the main religious meeting in many Associations the term Vesper 


10 


Service has come to stand for the many lesser religious features as 
well. Most of the city and county Associations held to the suggested 
topics “Our Heritage,” “Our Companionship,” “Our Privilege,” “The 
Source of Our Power,” and many student Associations united in their 
suggested themes “Then and Now,” “Women Working Together all 
Round the World,” “The New Democracy—What is Christian 
Service,’ ““A Working Religion—The Challenge of To-day.” 


Daily Bible Readings on personal resolutions leading to decisions 
were widely used either in the quiet hour that begins the day or in 
little dormitory or cabinet groups for study, very frequently at family 
prayers in the Association residence. One fine Vesper Service was 
led by a Jewish girl who came to America fifteen years ago in the 
steerage, another by one of the foremost women speakers in America 
with 4,000 people in her audience, many new Bible classes were begun 
for women in every rank and condition of life. A little Russian girl 
said to be the secretary who had spoken on “Create in me a clean 
heart, O God,” “That was very beautiful what you said ‘Create in 
me a clean heart, O God,’ but we forget.” There were large services 
and small services, earnest after meetings in which girls began the 
Christian life, and intimate meetings of Christian fellowship where 
they learned to pray together. From reports received there was an 
attendance of 132,451 at 1,263 religious meetings. 


Several Associations conducted evangelistic services during part of 
the Jubilee month. There had been at first a proposition for some 
widely concerted action of this kind, but the plan seemed to be too 
large to be adjusted into the Jubilee schedule and was finally carried 
as a supplementary effort in November and December. This was a 
series of Winter Conferences in nineteen city Associations in eight of 

11 


the eleven fields, in which members registered as in the Summer Con- 
ferences for classes on Christian Fundamentals and Personal Evangel- 
ism, for a course of evangelistic addresses and a World Fellowship 
Meeting. These Winter Conferences are acknowledged as one part of 
the Jubilee that brought Jesus Christ and his interpretation of our 
lives to thousands of women and girls so powerfully and so perma- 
nently that they will hold a fixed place in the Association calendar. 


The Young Women’s Christian Association is a Movement Which 


Recognizes Christ Jesus as its Leader. 


This Is What the Vesper Services Reiterated 


THE MEMORIAL ENDOWMENT 


Nearly all Jubilee and Centenary Celebrations have condensed the 
overflowing spirit of congratulations and amiable prophecy into some 
solid enduring monument. It was not hard to decide what this should 
be in the American Young Women’s Christian Association Jubilee, for 
only a few months before the “Every Member Campaign’ was pro- 
jected, God had called home in the afternoon of her days Miss Grace 
H. Dodge, of New York City, the first and only president the Na- 
tional Board of the Young Women’s Christian Association of the 
United States of America had ever known; and it was deemed fitting 
that on Friday, March 3rd, the actual fiftieth anniversary of the first 
use of the name Young Women’s Christian Association in this country, 
every member of the organization and every friend of Christian work 
among young women and girls might have the opportunity to make 
a voluntary offering to perpetuate the work to which Miss Dodge 
had given herself without reserve for the last ten years, and to which 
her last will and testament had assigned the sum of half a million 
dollars. 


The Jubilee records show 16,000 pledges made from Associations 
in all of the eleven fields. The smallest stated gift was the sum of four 
cents; the largest was $500,000, and by the time of the next annual 
meeting one million dollars had been contributed. 


Gratitude for a Leader of Girls Who Had Been Endowed with 
Creative Faith. 


This Is What the Memorial Endowment Showed 


WHAT WENT INTO THE JUBILEE 


At national headquarters weeks of committee meetings in which 
workers from all over the country took part; preparation of printed 
matter ranging all the way from a history “Fifty Years of Association 
Work among Young Women” which had been several years in prepara- 
tion, down to simple blue pennants: 


1,812,650 pieces of free literature were sent out, 
331,644 pieces of printed matter, for which a price was charged, 
83,034 pages of multigraphed material, 
108,000 buttons, 
1,444 pennants. 


The field committees were busy making up schedules for the 
official visitors, both volunteer and secretarial. Ninety of the ninety- 
five Associations in one field were covered in this way. In another 
field a Flying Squadron held four week-end conferences, in points 
accessible to nearly all the Associations, and here they had Pageant 
and Banquet and Vesper Service, and all the other integral elements 
of the Jubilee program with audiences of a thousand. 


‘The local Associations—for nearly all observed some of the pro- 
posed features except one or two which languished and wished to die 
in peace without interruption by an official visitor—put into the Jubilee 
the hardest of all hard work, steady giving out of information, enlist- 
ing help, doing impossible things, snatching victory from defeat until 
fatigue almost blunted perception of values. It was a month of open- 
ing doors, of sending for more chairs, of telling to new ears what a 
Young Women’s Christian Association was, of showing the building 
and activities, and of explaining to friends and parents what was 
the constraining force which had brought the girls they knew to the 
building or rooms and into membership. 


14 


WHAT CAME OUT OF THE JUBILEE 


People know what the young womanhood of these United States 
is in this Twentieth Century, where these girls were born, how they 
occupy themselves, what they think and believe. People know how 
the Young Womens Christian Association came into existence, not a 
social institution but a religious movement, and they understand its 
obligations to young women of other lands than our own. 


The Association publicity posters and placards told some people 
of this; the pageants and programs told more; the daily press, the 
leading periodicals of religious and social progress announced this; 
college papers and sorority magazines spread the word; and our 
friends, the pastors of thousands of churches, told their own congrega- 
tions or special audiences that they believed this Young Women’s 
Christian Association had come to the Kingdom for such a time as this. 
In one cathedral service the Dean preached on the text, “Am I my 
brother’s keeper,” and remarked during the sermon, “The Young 
Women’s Christian Association is a handmaid of the church, doing 
what the church unassisted often would be unable to accomplish. It 
is a force for unity, enabling * * * * denominations to appreciate 
the possibility of uniting on a religious program. The Association 
is a force for co-operation, turning class consciousness into social 
consciousness. It is wholly voluntary in organization. Primarily a 
preventive rather than a remedial institution, it is a school of life for 
the development of Christian character.” 


Inside the Associations old and new members—of whom there 
were literally thousands during the Jubilee month—recomitted them- 
selves to the main religious purpose; or for the first time declared 
allegiance to Jesus Christ; the world sisterhood seemed to mean more 
than ever before. All this was evidenced by the months succeeding 
the actual celebration. 


~ 


15 


Perhaps the multitudinous reactions of 340,000 members, 971 
Associations, may be summed up in this way: 


THE JUBILEE BROUGHT 


REVERENCE FOR THE PAST 
CO-OPERATION FOR THE PRESENT 
COURAGE FOR THE FUTURE 


A FORWARD MARCH TOWARD THE GREAT 
OBJECTIVE 


“TO BRING YOUNG WOMEN TO SUCH A KNOWLEDGE OF 
JESUS CHRIST AS SAVIOUR AND LORD, AS SHALL MEAN 
FOR THE INDIVIDUAL YOUNG WOMAN FULLNESS OF LIFE 
AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER, AND SHALL MAKE 
THE ORGANIZATION AS A WHOLE AN EFFECTIVE AGENCY 
IN THE BRINGING IN OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD AMONG 
YOUNG WOMEN.” 


16 


NATIONAL BOARD 


of 

Department of Method ee oie Mrs Robert E j 

City Committee The Young Womens Christian Associations Nee Toten Becedh Cho 

own an ountry Committee ° ° E. ti j 

Student Committee of the United States of America Mrs James S Cushman yearby Soh pee 
poparement peeeld Work 600 Lexington Avenue Mrs William W Roseitee 
Foreign Departmen 5 d Vi ident 
Department of Conventions & Conferences New York City Mrs Thomas S JEAN, abaya cur lo a 
Secretarial Department Mrs Samuel! J Broadwell Treasurer 
Sree g peters Telephone Plaza 6000-1-2 
Office Department Cable Address Outpost New York 


Miss Mabel Cratty Genera! Secretary 


April 3, 1917 


Bible House 
New York 


Gentlemen: 


At this time there is being sent you a report of the Young Womens Christ- 
ian Association Jubilee recently celebrated throughout the American Associations. 
In view of the fact that most religious organizations have included a collection 
of funds in their program for Jubilee and Centenary celebrations, interest may 
attach to the statement on page 13 that a Memorial Endowment Fund of One Million 
Dollars was gathered in connection with the Young Womens Christian Association 
Jubilee to commemorate the work of Miss Grace H. Dodge, the first president of 
the National Board, This is a part of the permanent endowment fund which the 
National Board is endeavoring to raise and which still totals less than is needed 
as a financial foundation by a movement of this character if it is to prosecute 
@ vigorous work among the 10,000,000 young women of the United States, many 
groups of whom can not as yet be included in the Association program. 


Announcement made through the secular papers of Mr. John D, Rockefeller's 
gift of $500,000 to this Memorial Endowment, led the public to believe that the 
National Board had completed its necessary endowment fund, which is far from be- 
ing the case. As the home base is more adequately endowed the American Asso- 
ciations can extend their work in those foreign countries where the magnificent 
achievements of the Young Mens Christian Association call persistently for a 
corresponding advance by the woman’s movement. 


Very truly, 


EW Executive, Secretarial Department 


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